The AKB48 Group teams will compete against each other in a new event, the AKB48 Group Pennant Race. Points will be awarded based on theater ticket applications, theater version handshake ticket sales and sousenkyo votes.

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24 August 2012

AKB48 TOKYO DOME Concert Team Shuffles

During the first day of AKB48's 3 day concert at Tokyo Dome, it was suddenly announced that the Teams of AKB48 will have their members shuffled. Team 4 will be abolished and AKB48 will return to its 3 Team system, but with more members in each Team.

This is the second time AKB48 has got it's Teams shuffled, the first was in August 2009 during AKB48's Budokan Concert.

Among the shuffle announcements, Team A's Captain Takahashi Minami was appointed as AKB48's General Manager. She will still be a member of Team A, but Shinoda Mariko will take over her duties as Captain. Oshima Yuko and Umeda Ayaka will also be replacing the Captains of Team K and Team B respectively.

But the shuffles were not limited to just within AKB48. Takajo Aki and Nakagawa Haruka have been transfered out to JKT48, Miyazawa Sae and Suzuki Mariya to SNH48. Ota Aika was also transferred permanently to HKT48, the five of them will no longer be part of AKB48. Kitahara Rie and Yokoyama Yui have also been appointed as dual members, and will participate in both AKB48 and SKE48/NMB48 activities.

Even though each Team is overloaded and has 22/23 members currently, they will still perform with 16 members for Stage performances in the Theater.